


Knives and Professionalism

by starling



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starling/pseuds/starling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows what it is to use weakness and lies and trickery as a weapon.  He knows what it is to be silenced.<br/>They are alike, more than Tasha wants to think about.  She’s compromised.</p><p>Loki and Tasha are themselves, and it works out just about as well as you would expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knives and Professionalism

Natasha Romanoff knows how to separate business and pleasure.  She has feelings - she’s not so naive as to try and deny that - but her fears and her loves and her weaknesses are her weapons, as much as her body and her secrets and her guns.  She is perfectly capable of having sex without letting feelings get in the way - she divides like that.

Sex with a god hadn’t exactly been on her bucket list, but when Loki leans across the sofa in the Avengers’ Tower with a dark look in his eyes, she resolves to match him.

She doesn’t mean for it to happen again.  The others might trust him but she doesn’t, she knows enough of him to be suspicious of everything, and she doesn't make a habit of trusting people.  There is a conflict of interest here.

He’s wild and vicious and he’s taken everything he’s been through, turned it inwards until he broke himself, and then unleashed it upon the world.  He jokes when he’s killing and when he’s dying, and when he’s sitting on the sofa dropping toast crumbs everywhere.  She wonders if he's the same on the inside, if this lighthearted foolishness is the same mood he murders in.

She doesn’t mean for it to happen again.  But it does.

They’ve almost been friends anyway, these past few months had been spent in a constant state of competition.  He can throw knives further, she throws with more accuracy.  She can take him in a hand-to-hand fight once his concentration wavers but he beats her in arm-wrestling.  He's better at chess and she has the edge in poker - she encourages these games, because nobody bets money on games of chess.

He knows what it is to use weakness and lies and trickery as a weapon.  He knows what it is to be silenced.

They are alike, more than Tasha wants to think about.  She’s compromised.

They tell lies to each other, when they're in bed together.  Softer lies, that seem to spill from him first by mistake like he's reading a script for the first time, like ‘only you’ and ‘always’ and ‘I promise’.  Harsher lies, that she begins to let him save face, like ‘I hate you’ and ‘I’ll kill you’ and ‘I need you’.

This lasts for months, this dance of lies and promises - lies all around, because somehow they silently agree that this is a secret.  It’s not that Tasha likes keeping secrets, exactly.  It’s just that she doesn’t know any other way to live.

Two years in, Loki finally turns on them and starts trying to destroy the Earth again.  Maybe he doesn’t know any other way to live.

Tony is furious, swearing viciously and reaching for the scotch like he wants to choke it down.

Bruce, Clint and Steve all seem disappointed but resigned to it, not surprised by it. She wonders if she'd been wrong about them trusting him, or if they're just too used to being let down to take it to heart.  

Thor is heartbroken - he’s lost his brother too many times, and he again takes the guilt of his brother's latest body count upon his shoulders. It hits him worst of all: of course it does.

Natasha?  Natasha is professional.  

The city streets have become a battlefield once more, and Tasha has left the clearing of civilians to Steve this time.  She’s in the mood for killing.

Loki finds her in a narrow street, standing over several alien bodies.  He looks terrible - he’s covered in blood and his eyes have that manic look. The SHIELD agent registers him as mentally unstable, the softhearted child recognises his guilt and fear. Natasha just sees a tragedy..

And this is the part where they lie to one another.

"Come with me. We could be great together. I could give you the throne you deserve."

He says ‘I need you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’.

He’s lying to himself as much as he’s lying to her, by now, and it’s harder to tell than ever.  

She leans up and kisses him, eyes open.  He relaxes into it, and after everything their lips still fit together.

He’s real.

She has a plan, lies of her own at her fingertips, but he has a knife in his hand poised to strike and he moves first -

She’s got a knife at her belt -

She reaches for it -

He hesitates -

She doesn’t.

He’s down for now -

a knife twisted in his back -

a knee to his chest -

a second knife to his throat -

a hand on the holster of her gun -

he’s down for now.

The Black Widow may be a mask constructed from the most secret parts of Natasha Romanoff, but the name is a mask nonetheless, and when she wears it, she is professional.

She radios for backup, because he’s still a god and she’s still a mortal, and wasn’t that always the way?

“Tasha,” he says, “Tasha please -“

She thinks about golden apples, and wonders if it would be worth it, just to steal them.

“Not interested,” she says, because she can beat his lies but she saw that hesitation and she doesn’t know if she can hold out long against the truth from his lips.

“Together, we could -“

She doesn’t want to be queen of Asgard any more than Jane Foster wanted it.  

“People have died.”

And that’s just it, isn’t it?

He cares for her, he likes her, he might even love her - but this is all in spite of her humanity.  He can cut down civilians like they are nothing, and she has never heard him say ‘only human’ but she does not doubt that he has thought it.  

Her childhood was stolen from her by the men who killed her chance at an ordinary life, and she would not have her humanity stolen as well.  Nothing about him is worth becoming inhuman for; no man has ever been worth that.

So.  She holds him down and tries not to listen to the words he’s pouring out that make her want to break.  

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“You’re the one who changed sides, not me,” she says.

“I did - you know.  I could have.  If.”  She gives him honesty for his honesty - and that is all she will give him.

And then Tony arrives - about damn time - blasting in with the restraints sent from Asgard, that will bind his magic.  He’s told her about how they burn, but she pushes the thought to the back of her mind.  After a moment, she pulls the thought to the front of her mind, and relishes it.  

They tie him down together, and Tony avoids her eyes, and Loki does not struggle.

“See you in hell,” Tasha says.

“I see you,” Loki replies, and it hurts to smile but Tasha smiles anyway. As if the bastard deserves her pity, after everything he's done.

No, that's not quite right. He has her pity, but it won't get him anywhere. She's too damn professional.


End file.
